Like Bazz, I too am fed up with the attitudes of muslims, not to mention their violent, deadly and childish reactions to cartoons, freedoms and democracy. The silence of the majority when atrocities are committed in their name is deafening, and discredits them. The religion encourages deceit against non-believers who must be annihilated. They don't want freedom, yet use it in our society to condemn us. Assimilate or get out. Religion is a personal belief and should not be inflicted on others.

Luciferase, I've spent most of my life in science, engineering and practical work, I think I have a reasonably good handle on the things that can be achieved deductively and the role of inductive inference. I've also got a pretty strong grasp on the role of abductive reasoning, which may be less well understood by some, including some like Dawkins, who have happily used it in the past.

I have to admit I was deliberately a little provocative in my posts regarding Hitchens, but only a little.

The question of the existence of God is an inherently uninteresting one. Why do I say that? Because it is unanswerable at the moment: as you say, it cannot be conclusively proven inductively and it's not amenable to deductive approaches. However, the observations that people make which lead them to posit the existence of God are more approachable and what's more, they are to some extent testable inductively and there is at least a theoretical way in which a conclusive proof cpould be derived. A fairly large number of people have spent a considerable time throughout recorded history (and no doubt prior to that) trying to do just that.

The problem for some empiricists is that one of the primary criteria which is almost without exception agreed is necessary to experience the "hand of God" is a willingness to accept that this is possible ("faith"). Scientists have faith too; the scientific method is to accept an hypothesis that seems to work until it is shown to be wrong by experiement. Sometimes the definitive experiment can take a long time to be found, or rely on lots of other things falling into place (emergence) and people may look for other explanations while they're waiting, but the initial hypothesis remains.

There are about 10 mutually incompatible explanations for quantum behaviour and no definitive experiment in sight. Should we do as Dawkins and the charming "Hitch" do with religion and pretend that this means QM is nonsense?

People are often prone to getting caught up in details and tend to overlook wider pictures. This is a common feature of all educated people (which is all of us, ever since there were people) and it has become more and more entrenched as educations have become narrower and knowledge of the details of the world increases.

We "know what we know" but we think that means we also know what we don't know and that's a serious category error.

Rumsfeld was pilloried for his talk of "known unknowns", which is not surprising given the large amount of "unknown unknowns" that most people have no idea they don't know about. It was an important and clear phrasing, however and it is applicable in all sorts of ways.

I'm not religious, but I do not assume that the people who are must be less intelligent than me and therefore wrong. That's not just a serious error, it's about as stupid as it's possible to be.

I have experienced for myself some things that I cannot readily explain, which some might see as having a religious connotation, but because of my particular mode of thinking I don't. Instead, I try to think of ways to test those observations and to explain what they might mean.

That puts me in pretty good company.

Further to that, Constance, is the fact that inserting someone's seemingly intelligent quote in your posts, doesn't mean diddly-squat.

"Blaise Pascal said that the beginning of morality was to think well; generosity of spirit is not enough."

Yes, I think he's right...but as I've pointed out, his conviction rests on the point I mentioned previously - and he tends to build the rest of his long discourse around that. Lots of wise stuff interspersed of course, but that's par for the course with that sort of man.

Humans come up with their own "wisdom" all the time...such as your towering theme "Islam = The Devil".

That's your biggy and you build everything else around it.

Well and good, but not hard to analyse.

And as for your quote:

"You don't want to be polite and gullible towards the point of inanity where you tolerate aggression and violence."

Coming from one of the most aggressive posters on this forum, that's rather rich.

Foxy I meant the whole stinking lot of people who follow religion. They think what they think and I think they are wrong. There is no God, they just need a crutch to lean on and use it to try and oppress me.
What do you mean about them telling me what to think? They all want me to do as their religion says and they can shove that.
Now I suppose you will try and bait with more stupidity. Foxy just kiss the muslim's feet(or above) and leave me be.

Constance,

"...."What's wrong with historical accuracy?." Because your're not being historically accurate. Catholicism is not a political organisation and that's where Henry's political beliefs didn't blend with the Catholic ethos...."
Henry's religious beliefs were Catholic and although he dallied with Protestantism he remained Catholic in his core beliefs and died so.

"....These three years 1536-38 marked the high watermark of officially sanctioned evangelical doctrine under Henry VIII. The King was a keen theologian, and was prepared to incorporate evangelical ideas into his new Church where he saw fit. But he wasn't comfortable with the alterations, and from 1539 onwards he reversed most of his previous policies. In 1539 the Act of Six Articles returned the Church to unambiguous Catholic orthodoxy apart from papal supremacy. Amongst other things, transubstantiation and auricular confession were reaffirmed. Clerical marriage, which had crept in, was condemned, and vows of chastity were now held to be unbreakable. This was an embarrassment to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, whose marriage was an open secret at the time.

More significantly, under this act heresy again became a felony. This was a clear signal that Henry VIII wouldn't tolerate those with radical religious views. Henry tried to establish a concensus between Protestants and conservatives. Protestants were punished for violating the Six Articles, while papists were punished for denying the royal supremacy.

Until Henry's death in 1547, the Act of Six Articles remained the basis of the Church's faith. In 1543, 'A Necessary Doctrine & Erudition for any Christian Man' came down entirely on the side of traditional orthodoxy, and merely replaced the papal supremacy with the king's authority. Any traces of Lutheranism that were present in the Book of 1537 'Institution of a Christian Man' had now disappeared. Although the English Bible was retained, access to it was severely restricted by the Act for the Advancement of True Religion in 1543. This allowed only upper class men & women to read the Bible, with such women only allowed to read it in private.

continues.